Balada: When death did not exist, nor yet Eternity Part I 051

Ear system, Volunian fleet’s Sun Corona position, Yemen’s Flags.h.i.+p.

Admiral Yemen gazed at the bridge screen which depicted the status of his forces, Balisha and the enemy.

What he saw, he did not like one bit. They had sustained casualties that mounted to 420 s.h.i.+ps destroyed and almost 800 that were knocked out of the battle in that rush, along with over 14.000 fighters of all cla.s.ses.

The enemy, according to what they could tell, had sustained significant fighter casualties but had not lost a single battles.h.i.+p or frigate, though they did have several that where badly damaged.

 There was a considerable difference in tonnage and armor between the light and heavy s.h.i.+p types, but still it was a very disturbing sight indeed, the fact that they had knocked out almost a quarter of the enemies fighters was poor compensation for their losses.

And thanks to the upcoming storm, they had to abandon the attack when it looked like they could breach the meteor. If they had recapture Balisha, then the cost may have been justified. h.e.l.l, if they would have just delayed the charge for another minute or two, they would have detected the storm in time and wouldn’t have attacked at all, they would have saved their energy crystals for the Centuria, but now, now it seemed like such a waste and a blunder that could have been avoided.

“At least the Imperials will be wiped out by the storm, even with Balisha they are to heavily damaged for their s.h.i.+elds to properly protect them, and the structure of the meteor is too compromised to s.h.i.+eld them.” Yemen thought to himself, as he mused on the bittersweet nature of his eventual victory.

He pressed a few icons on his farview screen and the real time visual image of the asteroid came to life and it looked as if the storm was still many hours away, but since what he saw was only traveling at the speed of light, it meant that it was already eight days old.

 They had fled from the meteor at top speed and after many hours of mark 10 times light speed they had finally arrived in the safety, or relative safety of the sun.

“I do not envy them one bit, being trapped in that asteroid while that storm is coming.” Kucklock said to Yemen.

“At least it will be brief affair, a storm of this intensity only last for a few moments, so they won’t suffer much.” Yemen replied.

“Yes sir, though I wonder how we will manage after this, the storm will no doubly heavily damage our fleet as well, we’ll have to abandon this campaign and withdraw to Galiana, once there, can we manage with only the heavy s.h.i.+ps?”

“I’m afraid we must my friend, we made a mistake, and we must come to terms with it.” Yemen replied.

“Warp storm estimated impact time is 3 to 5 standard minutes.” the pulsar operator said as the storm impacted just as he finished his sentence.

“I’d say there’s a margin of error in our equipment wouldn’t you say Kucklock?”

“How could you tell Admiral?” he replied and the two old soldier shared a laugh, but the good times where over as the Centuria hit, and made up for all the lost time. Thus the cosmic tsunami of pure, primordial and alien energy swept through the system, caring for nothing that was created by man, beast, nature or by ancients, as it brought annihilation to this speck of dust, that was the Ear System.

As the s.h.i.+ps shook violently, Yemen turned his gaze back at the screen he was watching and saw as the number of damaged s.h.i.+ps rose, in a horrifyingly fast rate.

By the time the storm finally pa.s.sed, less than a minute had been added to the clock, but the damage had been done, they hadn’t lost ‘ but many s.h.i.+ps’, but the entire fleet was heavily bruised, beaten and half-dead, and from the look of things, many s.h.i.+ps where to damaged to be repaired and would have to be scuttled.

 From his many years in the fleet, he knew even before receiving the casualty report that hundreds of thousands of sailors would by now, probably be wounded and hundreds if not thousand would be dead.

“Such is war.” he sadly lamented to himself as he gave the order to return to Balisha, reclaim the meteor, see what damaged had been done, what was left, and most likely give the Imperials a proper burial, they may have been foes and where hated ones at that for their perversions, but they deserved a proper funeral.

 “The dead after all, are absolved of all blames.” Yemen muttered under his breath as they made their way towards Balisha, they moved more slowly that they would have, if the storm had not struck. A few hours later he received the pulsar image of what the meteor looked like.

And the images where not pretty, a ma.s.sive dust cloud now enveloped the asteroid, since it couldn’t be called a meteor anymore, and it’s once pale and tranquil surface was now a red hot field of molten rock, it looked every bit as much as the h.e.l.l that he always said they would send their enemies to.

He did not know how to feel, so he only focused on the journey ahead.

Hours past, during which they patched what they could of their s.h.i.+ps, treated the wounded and placed the dead into body bags, it had been a very long day, and not even the familiar sight of Balisha now close enough that, what happened on the surface could be observed in real time without the help of a pulsar, brought any comfort, though everything seemed peaceful on the asteroid.

23:34

“Energy wave detected, it’s coming from Balisha!” the tactical operations officer said, before the wave hit the now heavily damaged fleet, and another and another, until thousands of s.h.i.+ps were destroyed and countless others where now, even more damaged than they had been before, they could barely be call s.h.i.+ps at all, at this point.

“Incoming transmission from the asteroid!”

“Put it on the main screen!” Kucklock ordered and before them laid the crimson eyed, dark blue face of Metternich.

“Admiral, although you’ve refused my generous offer for surrender, I would like to place it on the table once more as the rules of war dictates, and honestly I would grateful if you didn’t force me to have to fire again.”

His low and powerful voice delivered the message.

“H-How is this possible?” Kucklock asked as he gazed in fear at Metternich, and for once Yemen had no answer.

Extract from the book “Confessions, an Admirals tale volume I”

I have to say, that of every meat grinder I have had the misfortune of finding myself in, and subsequently getting out off and dragging as many soldiers as I could with me, that horrid day at Balisha had got to have been, at least to myself, my proudest moment.

For you see it was amongst the top 10 most creative of my many escapades!

After we had converted the majority of the vessels into fire s.h.i.+ps and became the appropriately named giant ball of nuts, we waited and timed the detonation of the fire s.h.i.+ps with the impact of the warp storm.

Now you may ask, how could blowing ourselves up as an energy simultaneously hit us do any good, well my answer to this was that we didn’t, and here’s how and why:

A fire s.h.i.+ps is basically any vessels that has it’s warp sanctuary calibrated to overload the power core and turn it into a giant bomb, that you set on a course for an enemy s.h.i.+p or structure, you of course jump s.h.i.+p before letting it loose, at least that’s what Imperials do, the rest I never exactly knew what their doctrines entailed too.

But as luck would have it, I remembered that overloading a core is like popping balloon through overinflating it, and if you untie or let go of the balloon mouth, you get a sudden burst of air as the balloon deflates.

That little fact wasn’t much of a mystery, and it was even part of the standard naval training doctrine to know how to disable a fire s.h.i.+p in case it wasn’t needed, since there’s no sense in wasting it, but the reason I can guess that n.o.body else but myself brought it up, was that deactivating a fire s.h.i.+p could ruin it’ engines permanently, or at best heavily damage them.

And so it was only used as a last ditch resort, and outside of the training program design to teach you how to deactivate it, you seldom got  a change to apply it, h.e.l.l Valyria, Tarkan and Georgaian had forgotten about it, until I reminded them and they had initially thought that  I intended suicide.

As for me, I can guess that the reason I remembered it, was that ‘Good ol’ Metty’ being  the epitome of a brave, self sacrificing soldier in the eyes of his comrades, always had on his mind ways to avoid death and last stands when the very reputation he so undeservingly acc.u.mulated would inevitably get him into a one of them.

And so as the storm was coming, I remembered that deactivating a charged of a fire s.h.i.+p, would result in a ma.s.sive energy disperse from the engines of said s.h.i.+p, thus I positioned them in a spherical formation in order to create a ma.s.sive energy wall against the Centuria.

 Frigates and battles.h.i.+ps in the exterior, with Carriers in the middle to protect the fighters and with the posteriors of each s.h.i.+p aimed in every direction, we waited for the storm to hit.

I tell you, that final ten second count down was one of the most nerve racking experience I’ve had in this galaxy or any other, and as the numbers went pa.s.s nine, thoughts of everything that could go possibly wrong went through my head.

We could fire too early and not have enough to last until the storm pa.s.ses!

 We could fire too late and get torn to pieces!

One of the s.h.i.+ps could misfire and mess up the whole chain!

A s.h.i.+p could explode and since we were packed as close as ants in a nest, we could all be sc.r.a.pped!

We could run out of energy!

 We could have a flat!

THERE COULD BE AN EARTHQUAKE!

 A TERRIBLE FLOOD!

LOCUSTS!

 THE IRS COULD INDICT ME FALSELY, PLEASE G.o.d HELP US!!!!!!!!!

Where the prevalent thoughts going through my panic stricken mind, as the counter finally hit zero and all of our s.h.i.+ps simultaneously released the built up energy necessary for the fire s.h.i.+ps.

The warp storm hit us just then, and every s.h.i.+p’s posterior fartet out a powerful jet of pure artificial hypers.p.a.ce energy to counterattack its natural produced warp energy, who pushed hard against its unnatural, green house grown, genetically modified, rubber tasting counterpart.

And let me tell you that few minutes spent in a Centuria was h.e.l.l on earth!

And considering the number of places that could have been candidates for the inspiration of h.e.l.l I’ve been over the years, that says a lot!

Everything shook with such might, that I could not see clearly, just shapes and shadows in front of me, almost every panel, farview, and universas screen blacked out or bursted from the ma.s.sive power discharge, and the heat levels become, well, h.e.l.lis.h.!.+

But as the intercosmic farthing contest continued outside, we finally got the answer to the age old question of which is better: natural products or artificial ones, and so the burst of energy by our s.h.i.+ps was enough to let us survive the warp storm.

That was a comforting thing for me, since I was not to keen on dying!

With the warp storm past us, I let the mask of a seasoned warrior fall and just leaned backwards in my command chair, relaxing and thanking G.o.d that I had survived, lived to experience the comforts of life, the great feel of the comfortable chair, the smell of something cooking.

But then I realized, that although we had the most efficient s.h.i.+ps in the galaxy, a kitchen was not a standard part of the bridge, I was confused as to what could cause such a smell, until the adrenaline started wearing off and a sudden pain from my right leg, beneath the knee delivered the answer, which was an indirect result from the sparks that came from the bursting monitors.

This liar had his pants on fire!

And so I quickly jumped from my seat and patted down the flames.

 The pants where still hot, so I took them off, not wanting to suffer any lasting burns.

“You alright sir?” Butz asked.

“Just fine Butz, but unfortunately my pants have apparently become a casualty of war.” I replied and took my great coat and placed it on my lap to cover my now bare legs, as I asked for a report and gave the order to reorganize our forces.

Much to my surprise, we had suffered no deaths from the storm, the crews of the Frigates and Battles.h.i.+ps had all taken refuge in the bridge and sanctuary of their s.h.i.+ps, which where the safest areas of any vessel.

I had no doubt in my mind that the enemy would return in due time, thinking that we were all dead, and in terms of our fleet’s condition, we could have pretty much been that way.

The s.h.i.+ps were barely functioning; everything from s.h.i.+elds, to structural integrity, to the secondary and even tertiary engines that were used for maneuvering had suffered heavy damage.

Fortunately, unlike yours truly, Valyria, Tarkan and Georgaian where geniuses in terms of war and maneuver and based on the enemies speed and the meteor’s movement, they managed to estimate the optimal firing position for our forces, for when the enemy would arrive.

That was a excellent thing since, as I said before, we where badly beat up, so much so, that the maneuvers which would have taken us only a couple of minutes to make under normal conditions, took us hours this way.

But the tedium was worth it, for as the b.l.o.o.d.y Volunians got close enough, we let out a powerful volley composed out of energy attacks and whatever missiles and warp cannon shot we still had left right into them, cutting down  what was left of their once mighty fleet to pieces.

After the fourth or fifth consecutive volley, the weapons finally gave out and a report was given to me saying that all life support was failing and we should consider using the escape pods atmosphere to breathe if we can’t repair the damages sufficiently.

After hearing that, I gave the order for a visual feed message to be sent to the enemy fleet, and it should only show my face and it alone, my uniform was messy from the fight, Valyria, Butz and the rest of the bridge crew along with the room itself looked like a frat house, after a night of drunken ping pong kickboxing, and oh yes, I was without trousers!

As soon as the comm’s officer said I was good to go, I Metternich per Pelasgiamus, without air, weapons or even pants, demanded the surrender of the most feared of our enemies with the following message:

“Admiral, although you’ve refused my generous offer for surrender, I would like to place it on the table once more as the rules of war dictates, and honestly I would be grateful if you didn’t force me to have to fire again.”

‘Especially since I had nothing left with which to fire at you!’ But I left that part out and gestured for the transmission to end.

Thus, I sat down and hoped that what they went trough was enough for them to trough in the towel, or at least get in their lifepods, that being the universal gesture of surrender.

It was a comforting though, until Valyria, decent person that she is, decided like most women to occasionally bless me with bad news.

“Unidentified fleet detected entering the system; from the C.S mark I’d say they entered about six hours ago, waiting to confirm their ID!”

“Thank you Valyria.” I said as if she just said that it was sunny on cloudless day, after all, what was I suppose to say or do?

Scream, panic and cry where all enticing options, but I was to exhausted for that, and so I sat there in my seat, awaiting for this unidentified threat to have its ident.i.ty revealed, all the while lamenting the apparent  fact that my trousers died a horrible death for nothing!

Metternich per Pelasgiamus, Freelance Potions Maker

The Occupied Territories, Maramanakama, river docks.

“Thank you for that lovely confession.” Gelios replied much to Cameron’s confusion.

Cameron and his soldiers where to stunned and confused of what was happening to form a response, while from the shadows a man who had angel like wings, golden skin and long flowing black hair appeared and walked towards the group.

“I think that’s enough, wouldn’t you agree mister Agnanimous?” Gelios asked the newcomer.

“I believe so, you’re highness.” the newcomer said and then turned towards Cameron, extended his arm for him to shake it and introduced himself.

“Michael Agnanimous, a pleasure to meat you Captain.” Cameron took the arm without hesitation and shook, for no true madman was not also, a gentleman and a polite one at that!

“You’re one of his blood thirsty minions, aren’t you?” Cameron asked tentatively.

“I’m afraid I’m worse, I’m his lawyer.” Michael with a disturbingly cheery smile.

“His lawyer?”

“Yes Captain, and with that tidbit of information you just gave us and the search warrant our police have, we should be able to have the necessary evidence to convict you, you’re a.s.sociates, most of your family, friends and pets, for criminal activity.” he said with a friendly smile, which caused the blood to once more drain from Cameron’s face.

“You can’t do that! You need a warrant to search my house!”

“I do believe we just said that we had one.” Michael replied, unfazed and a bit surprised by the comment.

“T-This is an illegal torture interrogation, it is not up to the standard of the law!” Cameron said smugly as if he just got away.

“But captain this is not an interrogation, this is or rather it was, an arrest for drunkenness in public.” Michael replied with that same soul sucking smile.

“What!?!”

“Yes, you see over the past few months the police department has been receiving complaints from the citizens who live on that street we detained you from, and as you can see we were merely bringing you to one of the local police stations.” Michael indicated to a building on the other side of the river, that was adjunct to a small ferry.

“B-but these men are CORSEC, the prince was trying to execute me! This is a scandal that will not be ignored by the n.o.bles!”

“The men and women you are referring too are B.A.C agents, loaned to this country.” Gelios replied.

“The Bureau of Anti-Corruption!”Cameron replied breathlessly as the implications of what he heard sunk in.

“Business suits are the standard uniform of the agency, and while it is true that CORSEC also uses business suits, these individuals have nothing to do with CORSEC.” Michael added.

“But they tied us up! They’ve gagged my men!”

“The law gives anyone working in law enforcement the right to gag and tie any citizen that presents a potential danger to the public, himself or his fellow agents, and I believe your men and you yourself included are currently drunk, high, carrying weapons and if I’m not mistaken, just confessed to performing criminal activities, so we are very much within our legal rights to bound and gag them.” Michael replied with the same smile.

Cameron tried to come up with some kind of reply to that, but words failed to manifest themselves in his mouth as he just realized he was trying to outtalk a lawyer!

“You hog fabin, taff kriffing, son of half troll! Just kill us now and be done with it!” Cameron shouted in his face.

“Kill you! Who do you think we are, Carnetsars? You will be tried, and if found guilty you will be punished in accordance to the law.” Gelios replied, fighting the urge to laugh at the Captain’s behavior.

“Which in this case, means multiple life sentences, and depending on what our people find in your ledgers, probably solitary confinement for you and something of the sorts for your partners, also according to the text messages I’m receiving on my miniature farview, we may need to invent a couple of new and harsher punishments for your crimes.” Michael replied with a smile on his face, as Cameron was dragged away kicking, cursing and screaming away to the police station.

“Kill me! Just kill me you good for nothing bas-“Cameron tirade was cut short by one of the B.A.C agents, who gagged him.

“Aren’t I doing just that?” Gelios asked Michael, who only laughed and nodded.

 A few minutes later Cameron and his men were taken to the police station and Gelios and Michael went back to their homes for some rest, leaving a dock that was empty, with the exception of the two stunned and confused marans, who emerged from the shadows.

Ear system, Balisha, Imperial Heavy Fleet Flags.h.i.+p.

“The new fleet has divided itself up into four fleets and they are proceeding in a standard pincer maneuver pattern.”

“Please G.o.d, is it too much to ask that my officers deliver some good news once in a while?” Metternich mentally lamented to himself, as he looked at the map displaying the battlefield.

“Unknown fleet has been indentified, it’s……..by the Caparahinu it’s our own Light Fleet! And their numbers have tripled since we last saw them! Looks like they brought the border patrols to help us, after dropping of our wounded!” the officer reported and Metternich quickly jumped out of his seat in amazement at that news, after which his pantsless state forced him to sit back down in the chair.

“Send a hail to the fleet!” Metternich ordered and the message was send, but even with the faster than light communications equipment, it still took at many hours for the message to get there and many more for the reply to return.

When it did, it was in the shape of Horatia, whose fleet was the fastest of the lot and was the one that was closest to Balisha.

“Commander, it fills my heart with joy to see that our allies have been delivered victory over the enemy, by everkind providence!”

After them followed messages by the other high ranking officers:

“It seems that even without our wounded soldiers, we will still be having s.p.a.ce problems aboard our s.h.i.+ps!” Dalius joked.

“The rest of our relief fleet is trailing behind, we had to sacrifice cohesion for speed, so about 45% percent of our forces are still on the way, I apologize for my incompetence.” Oscar’s message said.

“It is good to see you al safely my comrades, I look forward to our reunion.” the message from Antonius transmitted.

“Knew you wouldn’t pay the piper Commodore, any sailor who can make a Black Beret Colonel shut up can’t be killed!” Werner who was  on the flags.h.i.+p along with Adrian said with a healthy laugh, though he seemed somewhat disappointed, as all black berets where when they missed out on a good sc.r.a.p.

But as always Adrian topped them all with his message.

“Is is good to see you sir, though I knew that we would make it in time, I must admit I wasn’t even imagining this result!” he said awestruck.

 “Also we are receiving a transmission from the volunians asking for their surrender to be accepted, they did not give reasons why, but it might have something to do with the fact that we have more weapons than they do.” The knight added.

After encircling Yemen’s fleet, Metternich allowed exhaustion to take him.

And so with the battle over, the mighty warrior slept, comforted by the thought that there would be no more surprises this day.

Planet Volun 4, Outside the Imperial fortifications

Lieutenant Alexander Macintosh looked with bathed breath at the cold unmoving face of the Imperial chariots, who stared down at them as the feeling of doom gripped each warrior, even the veteran Holy Knights.

No words come from Alexander or any other soldier, for that matter, only silence and a strange sort of peace and acceptance gripped them, as the hatch of the leading chariot poppet open and the most wild and untamed warrior emerged from the bowels of the machine.

“Sorry we’re late, but we had to make a few pit stops for my young friend in the other chariot!” Captain Hannibal said as he emerged with a grin on his face, to the stunned Volunian and Federal forces surprise.

“Hey! It was you’re idea to take the long way around!” Lieutenant Lance said as he emerged from the second chariot.

“It worked didn’t it? After all, we arrived here in one piece!” Hannibal said with a chuckle and dismounted from the chariot.

“How are you boys holding up?” he asked the surprised Federal and Volunian soldiers.

“Fine captain, but could you please enlighten me, as to how a s.p.a.ce fleet captain got his hands on a squad of Imperial army chariots?” Alexander asked them after he got over his initial shock.

“Oh sorry, names Hannibal Rogue and the kid over there is Lance Hendrickson.”

And at this understanding dawned on Alexander’s face, he had heard stories about these two, how Captain Hannibal was the bane of every high ranking officer, but was to skilled in combat and most of the times, was too popular with the enlisted men to be heavily punished, so many officers just send him on periodic transfers to the infantry, thinking it that to a s.p.a.ce sailor it would be the ultimate insult.

Unknown to them, or most likely known and ignored out of sheer ignorance or stupidity, Hannibal loved it, when they did that to him! They would always send him in some remote location, where the only thing to do was gamble, drink and charm the ladies, and since he was s.p.a.ce fleet and not infantry, he could always use the ‘I’m not under you’re jurisdiction’ excuse to p.i.s.s the higher officers off, and when he was recalled back to the fleet it was always when battle was imminent, and he loved to fight and fly.

To him this was his dream job, fight all day, drink all night, p.i.s.s your boss off so much that steam would come out of his ears, and for punishment you’re sent to an area where you had no boss!

Lance had decided to attaché himself to him, and was also having the best time of his young adult life, they both where! That is, except for their recent stint on this little mud ball.

“No explanations needed captain, and although we are happy to see you, I doubt the chariots you brought would be of much use against the empire when they decide to attack us again.” Lieutenant Alexander said, wondering if he should have even asked for an explanation in the first place since Hannibal outranked him, thankfully he was not a stick in the mud.

“Well you can relax then, cause a minute ago I picked up a transmission from Yemen’s fleet. He just arrived in the system and chased away the Imperials!” Hannibal replied to which the troops gave a great cheer upon hearing the news.

A cheer that was repeated when Hannibal went to the back of the chariot, unloaded a rather large crate and upon opening it, the content was revealed to not be supplies, but something much more important to the common soldier.

It was bottles of whisky.

Dozens of them in fact, and although Hannibal doubted it would do anything more than wet the whistles of the soldiers, since there where too many of them or more likely the bottles be used as an antiseptic for the wounded, the gesture was enough to restore moral to the troops.

“These bottles have Imperial markings, where did you get a crate of Imperial alcohol?” Alexander asked.

“Killed some Imperials and looted their bodies of course!” Lance said as he came up and a laugh came from the troops close enough to hear it.

All and all thing seemed to have finally gotten better, and Hannibal could relax for now and eagerly wait for he, Lance and the rest of their unit to be given back their s.h.i.+ps, and join the navy for the upcoming battle.

*******************************************************************************

That was weeks ago.

Hannibal had been in many tight spots before, some of them best not mentioned in public or any other place outside his bedroom, but the most aggravating of them all must be his current situation, for after a detachment of the federal navy had finally arrived to extract the survivors of their task force, he along with Lance where considered the only bright spot in this whole disaster.

And he had to admit that, since they had lost more than half of the task force and a consideral number of Holy knights, along with the high ranking officers of both armies, he could see why high command was eager to latch onto their little chariot theft.

 So he and Lance had been sequestered on board the fleet for ‘medical observation’ until the battle was over, since high command currently didn’t have enough s.h.i.+ps in the subsector to send in time to join Yemen’s fight, and since that meant more of a Volunian victory than a Volunian/Federal one, they were hesitant to sent a force to partic.i.p.ate in the fight until a proper combined fleet could be a.s.sembled.

They were also very possessive of Lance and Hannibal and did not want to risk losing them, since they were the only thing that could be called a success from the whole fiasco.

“At least Yemen will finish of the imperials quickly and I can get back into the action.” the Captain said to Lance.

“I hear ya buddy, this tedium is driving me crazy, I can’t wait to get back in my skywanderer, so to our return to combat!” Lance said and raised his pint of ale.

Hannibal did the same and they clicked their pints together.

“Though I got to say, that although Colonel Werner was with them, I doubted that even he could have made that idiot Ca.s.sius make actual competent military decisions, guess I was wrong.” Hannibal said as me moved the pint to his mouth.

“Oh, I heard from the comm boys that Ca.s.sius died weeks before the fight, he was replace by some guy that’s some sort of minor hero to the Imperials, someone called Manertrip? Medermick?”

*CRAAAAAAa.s.sSSSSSSSSSSH* the noise of gla.s.s breaking startled Lance and upon looking at the floor where the gla.s.s fell, he saw that it was Hannibal’s ale that fell and shattered.

He looked up to his friend and was surprised to see his calm eyes and devil may care smile replaced with fear and a mouth that was opened wide in astonishment.

“D-do you mean Metternich? Metternich per Pelasgiamus?” Hannibal’s asked his voice a half-whisper as if he was afraid to utter the name.

“Yeah, that’s the guy! Are you okay Han?” Lance asked in concern for his friend.

“Y-yeah I’m okay, don’t worry about it.” he replied, though Lance was far from convinced, not only did his face screamed worry, but he also remained where he was not bothering to replace his drink, which to a fellow sailor like Lance, was an alarm bell in itself.

“Things are probably fine, Yemen is a legend and Metternich is good, but what could he do? There’s nothing anybody can do that can prevent a Volunian victory, not even the Fox of Marengo can turn the tide!” Hannibal, after a few minutes of silence, suddenly said to Lance in an apparent attempt to calm the young Lieutenant, which worried the Lance even more, since Hannibal gave him an answer to a question he did not ask.

But little did Lance and for that matter, neither did the captain himself suspect, that Hannibal had said that sentence as a means of self a.s.surance of the fact that Metternich could not win.

And despite the situation being in an overwhelming advantage for the volunians and by default the federals, Hannibal was still worried by the fact that the Fox of Marengo was leading the opposition, after all he had been there when Metternich earned his name.

He had been there at Marengo!

But everything would turn out fine of course! Wouldn’t it?